Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Please explain how using completely unreliable methods of questionable validity such as interviews achieves this aim.

As an example, Osgoode looks at significant volunteer experience. I know kids that are off to an African orphanage or some other godforsaken place for a year or more actually giving a crap about other human beings. Contrast that with the kid who's goal in life is to drive a Beamer!

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Thank you for teaching me a much-needed lesson in psychiatry. Up until now, I thought that when people called someone a psycho, they were making a formal diagnosis. I guess it was just pejorative, colloquial and offensive.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Factor in the value of a government pension though and you add another $20-30k per annum.

Not necessarily that much. For Ontario MAG, if you're in the pension plan, the employer matches your contributions. The contribution amounts are fixed at $3200 on the first $50K of income and then 9.5% thereafter. So if you're a fifth year call at MAG making $100K (which is roughly where you'd be at that point), then the employer's contribution to your pension is $7950.

So to hit $20K in employer pension contributions, you'd have to be making $227000. Only the Deputy Attorney General himself makes that much.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

As an example, Osgoode looks at significant volunteer experience. I know kids that are off to an African orphanage or some other godforsaken place for a year or more actually giving a crap about other human beings. Contrast that with the kid who's goal in life is to drive a Beamer!

The only difference between the guy who goes to volunteer in Africa for a year and me: my parents can't afford to send me to Africa for a year.

14

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Vancouver's cost of living might be astronomical but a legal income here is rather underwhelming. The poster is correct that you will need 7+ years at a large firm to make $150,000+ on average and that's a maybe depending on who you are. That said, an entrepreneurial rainmaker type of a lawyer with time, contacts and persistence COULD make more - possibly considerably more - at a smaller firm or on his/her own depending on the field. Unfortunately, most of us are not that type of a lawyer and legal training is not conducive to developing such skills. Law is not a quick road to riches today but then it never was. I recently was reading an article about legal practice in mid-late 19th Century England and it appears that the Bar was flooded with new lawyers at that time which caused almost 2/3 of the profession to have to supplement their income from other sources. It was so unlucrative that it became an unsuitable profession for younger sons of the gentry who needed a professional income to keep up their social position.

Young lawyer then as now were not rolling in money as indicated by Gilbert & Sullivan:

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

If you want to make money speculate, scam, or inherit, but stop thinking about becoming a lawyer.

I am one of the top paid associates for my year call in Vancouver and can afford to buy a dilapidated shack somewhere not overly desirable.

I actually adore law, but the practice of law is grueling. I think about leaving law for various assorted reasons unrelated to law, but somehow intrinsically related to the practice of law at least once every two to three months AND I'm only a junior associate. I have a friend whose job it is (when called upon) to remind me I like law. I love the buzz I get when I solve a really complex issue or tease apart a delicate problem. I can't imagine someone who didn't like law making it through the first five years of practice--the money just isn't enough.

The real key for government work isn't so much the salary, but the benefits. And I'm not just talking about the vested defined benefit pension. If you go on to work as counsel for DFAIT (or whatever they're calling it these days), you accrue significant benefits from living abroad (allowances, utility benefits, COLA, cheap housing etc).

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

The real key for government work isn't so much the salary, but the benefits. And I'm not just talking about the vested defined benefit pension. If you go on to work as counsel for DFAIT (or whatever they're calling it these days), you accrue significant benefits from living abroad (allowances, utility benefits, COLA, cheap housing etc).

While I'm sure living abroad working for DFAIT can accumulate some cash, government is notoriously stingy when it comes to benefits (other than pension).

Reading this thread I think a lot of people have some serious misconceptions about how lucrative the practice of law is. Bay Street is only a tiny minority of the work lawyers do, people...

Recently Browsing
0 members

Recent Posts

Except that the notion that everyone's doing better than you DO push people into downward spirals. And while the lesson should be that you shouldn't compare yourselves to others, it absolutely does happen in law school (http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/article/i-failed-in-law-school-and-you-can-too-2817/) and it would be strange to call it a "ridiculous" concern. Counterproductive, maybe.

By this token, people who pretend to be worried about high grades at a good law school, by their pretense, may push others into a downward spiral. And, treating ridiculous concerns seriously if it's not a pretense, may push that person and others into downward spirals. Better to dismiss such ridiculous concerns, I would think, as ultimately being more reassuring than enabling the tale of pseudo-woe.